David Hockney's Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, which will appear at Dulwich Picture Gallery in November. Photograph: PA

As birthday presents go, they are quite something: 12 of the most jaw-dropping paintings in any gallery anywhere, courtesy of institutions across Europe and the US including the Uffizi, Prado and Met.

The Dulwich Picture Gallery, England's oldest public art gallery, today announced it was marking its 200th anniversary in 2011 by displaying specially loaned paintings for a month at a time by artists such as Velázquez, El Greco, Rembrandt, Constable and David Hockney.

"We wanted paintings that would knock your socks off at 50 paces," said Ian Dejardin, the gallery's director, who admitted he has been thinking about the bicentenary since he joined five years ago.

"This is a very important date in the history of all museums in this country and if you're going to celebrate, then you might as well do it all year. If you haven't heard of Dulwich Picture Gallery by the end of the year then you're deaf."

The south London gallery opened 200 years ago to house a remarkable collection that had been built up over five years for the King of Poland, who wanted to build a royal collection from scratch.

His abdication in 1795 left two London-based art dealers with some fine paintings which, in turn, led to the creation of what is one of the world's oldest public galleries. Then it charged sixpence to keep riff-raff out. Today the riff-raff are welcome, but they must pay £5 to see a permanent collection that is one of the most important collections of old masters anywhere.

It is this reputation and history that had galleries saying yes to Dejardin's request for loans. One of the most eye-catching is the self-portrait of Van Gogh – he'll be Mr July – from the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. It was specifically requested by Dejardin, not least because a 19-year-old Van Gogh walked from central London to the gallery in 1873 and made a mess of the visitor's book by blotting ink all over it. Unfortunately all that is known of his experience, said Dejardin, is that he "had a nice day".

Dejardin said the loans were like "a year-long advent calendar of your dreams". It kicks off with a Sir Thomas Lawrence portrait of Sir John Soane in January and is followed by a Velázquez portrait from the Prado in Madrid – "one of the most extraordinary portraits by the most extraordinary painter in the world," said Dejardin.

March sees the loan of a Vermeer from the Queen; then an El Greco from New York; a Veronese from Florence which comes to the UK for the first time; and a portrait by Rembrandt of his son Titus from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

August brings an Ingres from New York's Frick Collection; then comes a Gainsborough from Washington; Constable's The Leaping Horse from the Royal Academy; Hockney's Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy from Tate; and finally a perfect Christmas card image – Domenichino's The Adoration of the Shepherds from the National Gallery of Scotland.

Dejardin also announced a summer exhibition in which he had "high hopes for fisticuffs" from the visiting public, in that it will examine two artists as stylistically different as it is possible to get – Cy Twombly and Poussin.